As a student on the Governance and International Politics Joint MA, you will be able to tailor make the course to suit your interests and future career goals.

You will study two core modules in International Relations Theory and Governance of Global Problems, which will give you an advanced grounding in the key concepts and ideas used in the analysis of international relations and international politics.

You will critically examine the nature and impact of the major schools of thought in International Relations and understand how problems such as terrorism, economic and financial crisis, armed conflict or trade wars occur and how they might be best resolved. This will offer you a sense of the identity of International Relations as an academic discipline and give you a set of conceptual tools, which will better enable you to make sense of international events.

You will also examine the key issues in relation to globalisation, global governance and regional integration. Globalisation is the buzzword of our times. No other term has been used and abused as frequently as globalisation. It is variously seen as a threat to established social, political and economic interests or as an opportunity. You’ll gain an overview of political and social science approaches to the meaning of globalisation, global governance and regionalism, explore central issues and debates in relation to the impact of globalisation on social and political transformation, and critically evaluate contending interpretations of the impact of globalisation on social and political change.

Throughout your masters course, you will benefit from active membership of the Aston Centre for Europe, a thriving research hub which organises debates, study visits, and conferences and seminars on current international issues.

All our MA Programmes equip students with the knowledge and analytical and transferable skills to pursue further postgraduate research or a successful career in the public and private sector.

The careers pursued by our students vary greatly, but typical careers include:

• employment in international organisations (EU, WTO, UN etc.)
• research in policy-oriented domestic or international think tanks
• careers in government administration
• further postgraduate research at PhD level
• journalism
• international marketing or business.